Daniel’s 7th Birthday Cake

When I first had children and started celebrating their birthdays, I’d bake my own birthday cakes for their parties. The very first one I did I used a recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible book and it turned out really well. However, the frosting called for buttercream. While it was a really delicious and not-too-sweet buttercream frosting, it was still a LOT of butter! And I’ve always preferred fresh whipped cream whenever possible.

This recipe from Fine Cooking magazine has been my go-to cake recipe for all special occasions now. I’ve used it to bake birthday cakes and baby shower cakes. Just about any occasion that calls for a cake, I’ve made it. I’ll tell you why.

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This dish is another classic Chinese dish that originally calls for 1 cup each of 3 main ingredients: soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar, hence the name 3 Cups chicken (Sam Pui Kai)! However,1 cup of each ingredient is quite a bit too much for me. Imagine having a whole cup of sesame oil in there! You’d have a circle of oil lubing your mouth if you did that. Not too pleasant!

So, I looked up some recipes and decided to adapt all the different recipes into my own (heavily borrowing from Amy Beh’s original recipe on kuali.com). After a bit of experimenting I find that instead of 3 cups of everything, it’s actually better to have one part sesame oil to two parts soy sauce to three parts rice wine vinegar (1:2:3 chicken might be a more appropriate name ^_^). (more…)

I promised you that I would share this yummy potato side dish that went with our roast lamb dish and here it is. This roasted aioli potato side is so popular that every time I make it, I end up having to double or even triple the recipe. Also, I always get requests for the recipe so here it is finally!
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Updated 29 January, 2009
Originally published 14 January, 2007

This is the dessert that capped our Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 meal.

I got this recipe from my good friend, Elizabeth, with whom I’ve been swapping recipes for a long time. She told me about a green tea tiramisu recipe that she was trying. I was so intrigued by the idea of “Asianifying” tiramisu that I had to try it myself.

I’ve since made green tea tiramisu a few times, and Nate has even taken a video of me making it. Nate has been requesting this dessert as his birthday cake ever since the first time I made it. Yes, that’s how much he loves it.

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